


The Wizards in the Tower

by MissWoodhouse



Series: History of Magic [3]
Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Richard III - Shakespeare, The White Queen (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 03:04:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5480933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissWoodhouse/pseuds/MissWoodhouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Princes in the Tower have escaped their prison by disapparition and returned to Hogwarts for its 1483-84 school year.  King Richard III, a religiously anti-magic muggle, discovers that they are missing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Wizards in the Tower

It was September the first and Richard was furious. He’d gone against all he believed in and hired one of _them_ to magically ward the place, for God’s sake! The man had sworn that his spells would prevent anyone from magically appearing or disappearing from the Tower, and still the princes had escaped without a trace.  Richard had blackened his immortal soul by dealing in such idolatries, and all for naught.

 

It was all that Woodville witch’s fault! And truly it was a crime that a magic-using heretic like her should be allowed to seek holy Sanctuary in a house of God.  It was Richard’s duty, as the only surviving Son of York, to prevent this evil clan from assuming power over the whole of England.  Their corrupting influence had spread too far already during the rule of his hoodwinked brother, Edward, and he would not – nay, could not – allow them to remove the precious jewel that was England from the crown of Christendom.

 

Perhaps, things would not have been so bad if he had succeeded in convincing Edward to let him handle the princes’ education. Surely, Richard could have swayed his nephews towards the right path, if only given the opportunity, whatever their mother’s heritage.  But under the tutelage of that magician, Anthony Woodville, the Lord only knew what kinds of foul knowledge they had been fed, groomed into practitioners of evil. While Edward made it known about court that the Prince of Wales had his own household near the Welsh border, Richard knew that was not where the boy had been living prior to the news of the old king’s death.  He’d heard whispers of a castle in the wilds of Scotland.  Some sort of unholy school named for hog’s warts – it almost made him ashamed to have a boar for his own mascot, although a pure and wart-less one to be sure. And none of the knights in his nephew’s escort were ones Richard had seen before on the field of battle – they must all have been fellow magic-users, which made their numbers all the more frightening.

 

As things stood, he could not, in good conscience have allowed such boys to stand as his brother’s undisputed heirs. Even as lord protector, Richard would not have had the power to mend their ways, they were too far gone and would surely have allowed their mother and her heinous family to steer England towards eternal damnation with their witchcraft.  He had no choice but to step forward and tell the good Christian people the truth.  Edward would never have allowed the accusations, indeed, had executed poor George for trying (not that anyone much believed a man so desperate in grief anyway), but now he was gone the truth could be shared.  The heirs of such an unholy union could not be legitimate, marriage or none.

 

And now the guards said they were gone without a trace, perhaps off to that damned school.  Either now or in years to come, they would surely return, with an army of devilish magic-users behind them, to unseat Richard from the throne he only sought to protect.  If he announced the boys’ freedom, the nation would call it a miracle – they would not see that such work belonged to the Devil and not to God, and so would flock to support the princes’ claim.  He had no bodies to produce and pronounce them dead.  (Perhaps he should have dealt with them from the start in the way Edward had poor Henry VI dealt with, although Richard doubted he nor God could have stomached such a murder of children, even with stakes so high.) Yet without being able to produce a glimpse of them every few months, someone, no doubt Elizabeth Woodville knowing full well their safety and yet leading the charge, would begin to accuse him of doing away with the boys, and call for an uprising on that score! He was trapped by their disappearance, with no clear path in sight.

 

Lady Margaret Beaufort had always been a pious woman, and though she had strong Lancastrian leanings, surely she would see the urgency of preventing the witch’s sons from regaining the crown. Perhaps Richard might reach out to her for advice.  If he allowed her son back into England, on condition that both the young Henry Tudor and his uncle Jasper join Richard’s forces, then surely she could be of assistance! She was married to Henry Stafford, after all, and the Stafford brothers knew how to turn the tide of a battle like no others – even their presence would give his troops confidence in victory, when the time came to battle his rival claimant for the throne.

**Author's Note:**

> There have been rumors of witchcraft associated with Elizabeth Woodville and her mother Jacquetta, and Richard III was known for being a very devout Catholic, even for his time. Since witchcraft threatened the power of the church, it was cast as the work of the Devil, so I thought it would be fun to explore a Richard whose seizure of power/hatred of the Woodvilles came from a strong religious hatred of magic. Also, it let me write a fun fix it/solution to the mystery for the Princes in the Tower.
> 
> Assume that when the Statute of Secrecy was put in place the “pre-contract” excuse (the claim that Edward IV was already married to Eleanor Butler when he married Elizabeth Woodville) for illegitimizing the Princes in the Tower was invented to replace Richard’s allegations that Elizabeth Woodville and her children practiced magic. George, Duke of Clarence’s earlier accusations of the same were left alone, because no one particularly believed them at the time anyway.


End file.
